The Story Behind … My Gordian Accordian Sculpture Series

Kevin is looking at one of his sculptures, Low Orbit. “This is kind of how my brain works,” says the artist. Low Orbit is part of his Gordian Accordian Series.

The first sculpture Kevin did in this series was called Sprung. It actually had two winding sections, one inside the other. It sold at an art show where two families fought over it to see who would get to take it home.

With this style of sculpture, Kevin wanted to see how far he could push the metal. He wanted to see the flow, what would happen as he bent the metal one angle or another, and whether he could make the metal come all the way back around on top of itself to make it meet up again.

Another sculpture he created in this series is called CounterSink. It’s a really fun little sculpture simply because you can’t find where it begins and ends. Everything just seamlessly comes back together.

The biggest sculpture in this series is called Square Up. It’s over six feet tall. And if you give it a little push, it kind of thinks it’s Chubby Checker. It gets a little wiggle going.

The heaviest sculpture in this series is called Mondo. It’s five inches on a side and about five-and-a-half feet by about five feet tall. It’s a monster! Kevin had a lot of fun piecing together and welding it into shape. Then, oh yeah, you have to pick it up and move it when you’re done, too.

Probably the most difficult sculpture in this series is called Dorothy’s Nightmare. Instead of being a never-ending sculpture like CounterSink, Dorothy’s Nightmare comes back around and feeds back into itself. This sculpture actually has a beginning and an end, but it begins and ends inside of itself. It comes off the table, swirls around, and goes back over the top and right back down inside of it again.

Kevin would love to create an even bigger sculpture than Mondo, but it would have to be built in an entirely different fashion. He wants to make a sculpture that’s big enough to actually walk through, big enough that you could have it up overhead and see what’s going on inside.